Greenpeace were
doing what they do best again yesterday, chaining themselves
to anchors and blocking a coal ship in the port of
Lyttleton. But if the TV coverage last night was anything to
go by, that's about all there was to it – a bunch of
crazies causing mischief. So it'll be nice to actually hear
what they were, and are, trying to draw attention to. At
1220 I'll be speaking with Carmen Gravatt who is on the
Rainbow Warrior and right in the thick of things. She'll
explain how the NZ government is expanding our coal industry
at the same time as harping on about reducing carbon
emissions.

1240 - Houses – Shane Jones Minister of
Building and Construction

At 1240 the Minister for
Building and Construction Shane Jones will be on the line
all the way from the far north. We'll be having talking
about his plans to streamline the consent process for major
housing projects, which Labour hopes might go some way to
easing the whole housing affordability thing by cutting down
on costs associated with red tape. But critics argue the
plan will see an explosion of ugly, samey housing projects,
and will do little to solve the problem of pricey
homes.

1300 – Dr Barbara Maas, Care For The Wild

At
one o'clock I'll be speaking with Dr Barbara Mass, currently
visiting this country as the representative for an
international organisation called Care For The Wild. This
week, a World Economic Forum report on travel and tourism
surprisingly ranked this country as the worst of 130
countries in terms of how well we protect endangered
species. Barbara says this is a wake up call for NZers who
take pride in our clean and green credentials.

1320 –
Counterclockwise – Fiji and Pacific Forum

The very
excellent Selwyn Manning from the team at scoop will be on
the line at twenty past one for Counterclockwise. Today
Selwyn will be looking at developments at the Pacific
Foreign Ministers forum currently taking place in Auckland.
Fiji and China are the hot topics, and Selwyn was there
yesterday hearing from Winston Peters and his Australian foreign affairs counterpart, Stephen Smith.

1340 – Book She Read – Granta 100 and literary
spat

And then at one forty Sally's back for another
installment of Book She Read. Today she'll be taking a look
at the latest release from Granta – the very well
respected literary periodical which this month celebrates
its 100th issue. Critical reaction has been pretty mixed
though – only 2 out of 5 stars on amazon – so it'll be
interesting to get a bfm perspective won't it? Sally will
also be prying into the spat that's causing a ruccus in the
local book community, and taking up precious column inches
in letters to the editor at the Herald.

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